KATHMANDU: The 20-year-old Nepali woman, who became the cynosure of all eyes this year with the news that she had become engaged to Charles Sobhraj, whose criminal career in the 70s inspired books, documentaries and films, is now seeking her “conjugal rights” after being denied visiting rights to the 64-year-old for nearly a month. Shakuntala Thapa, Sobhraj’s lawyer as well as mother of Nihita Biswas, his fiancée who also claims they were married according to the Nepali tradition last month, told TNN that she and the other lawyers engaged by the French citizen to get him acquitted in a three-decade-old murder case have begun consultations to move Supreme Court against the authorities of Kathmandu’s Central Prison, where Sobhraj is serving a 20-year jail term. Last month, when Nepal was celebrating its biggest Hindu festival Dashain and prisoners were allowed to come out of their cells to meet their families, the intrepid Nihita says she exchanged wedding vows with Sobhraj and is now his wife. However, following the international furore that the news of the “wedding” created, the jail authorities clamped down on Sobhraj, drastically curtailing his right to have visitors. Since last month, Nihita has been repeatedly turned away from the prison gates without being allowed to meet him. The prison authorities say the “wedding” was a farce. It has to be registered by the district authorities in order to be recognised by them. However, Thapa, a senior lawyer at Nepal’s Supreme Court, is opposing the curb. “I am Nihita’s mother and her legal guardian and I am saying I gave my daughter in marriage to Sobhraj,” she told TNN. “Then how can they try to disprove it? Of the hundreds of women who visit the prison every day to meet their husbands, how many have had their weddings registered?” Thapa says that while Nepal is the focus of attention of human rights organisations worldwide and receives thousands of dollars every year for bettering its human rights records, holding Sobhraj almost incommunicado in prison amounts to a gross violation of his human rights. She is also seeking to get a ruling from the apex court for greater access to Sobhraj as his lawyer. “In the past, Sobhraj’s lawyers requested the court to uphold the right to privacy that exists between an accused and his lawyer,” she said. “There are confidential things that I need to discuss with him as his lawyer; and yet, I am allowed only 10 minutes to speak to him and that too when he is surrounded by murderers and criminals.” It is likely that Sobhraj’s other lawyer in Paris, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, will move the International Court of Justice in Geneva to put pressure on the Nepal authorities. The new flurry of activities comes as the fight between Sobhraj and the state is nearing a climax. Arrested from a Kathmandu casino in 2003 for the murder of an American tourist, Connie Jo Bronzich, in 1975, Sobhraj was found guilty by two lesser courts and slapped life imprisonment. Since 2005, he has been contesting the verdict and his lawyers feel the Supreme Court could deliver the final verdict by this year-end.
KATHMANDU: The 20-year-old Nepali woman, who became the cynosure of all eyes this year with the news that she had become engaged to Charles Sobhraj, whose criminal career in the 70s inspired books, documentaries and films, is now seeking her “conjugal rights” after being denied visiting rights to the 64-year-old for nearly a month. Shakuntala Thapa, Sobhraj’s lawyer as well as mother of Nihita Biswas, his fiancée who also claims they were married according to the Nepali tradition last month, told TNN that she and the other lawyers engaged by the French citizen to get him acquitted in a three-decade-old murder case have begun consultations to move Supreme Court against the authorities of Kathmandu’s Central Prison, where Sobhraj is serving a 20-year jail term. Last month, when Nepal was celebrating its biggest Hindu festival Dashain and prisoners were allowed to come out of their cells to meet their families, the intrepid Nihita says she exchanged wedding vows with Sobhraj and is now his wife. However, following the international furore that the news of the “wedding” created, the jail authorities clamped down on Sobhraj, drastically curtailing his right to have visitors. Since last month, Nihita has been repeatedly turned away from the prison gates without being allowed to meet him. The prison authorities say the “wedding” was a farce. It has to be registered by the district authorities in order to be recognised by them. However, Thapa, a senior lawyer at Nepal’s Supreme Court, is opposing the curb. “I am Nihita’s mother and her legal guardian and I am saying I gave my daughter in marriage to Sobhraj,” she told TNN. “Then how can they try to disprove it? Of the hundreds of women who visit the prison every day to meet their husbands, how many have had their weddings registered?” Thapa says that while Nepal is the focus of attention of human rights organisations worldwide and receives thousands of dollars every year for bettering its human rights records, holding Sobhraj almost incommunicado in prison amounts to a gross violation of his human rights. She is also seeking to get a ruling from the apex court for greater access to Sobhraj as his lawyer. “In the past, Sobhraj’s lawyers requested the court to uphold the right to privacy that exists between an accused and his lawyer,” she said. “There are confidential things that I need to discuss with him as his lawyer; and yet, I am allowed only 10 minutes to speak to him and that too when he is surrounded by murderers and criminals.” It is likely that Sobhraj’s other lawyer in Paris, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, will move the International Court of Justice in Geneva to put pressure on the Nepal authorities. The new flurry of activities comes as the fight between Sobhraj and the state is nearing a climax. Arrested from a Kathmandu casino in 2003 for the murder of an American tourist, Connie Jo Bronzich, in 1975, Sobhraj was found guilty by two lesser courts and slapped life imprisonment. Since 2005, he has been contesting the verdict and his lawyers feel the Supreme Court could deliver the final verdict by this year-end.
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